Soojin Choi, National Power, "Increasing stocks by making laws to influence stock prices... conflict of interest"

(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Jo Daun = It was found that Lee So-young, candidate for Minister of SMEs and Startups, had a more than 10-fold increase in stock-related assets around the time when she actively participated in the so-called 'separate taxation of dividend income' legislation, which reduced the tax burden on stock investors.

On the 3rd, People Power Party lawmaker Choi Soo-jin, a member of the National Assembly's Trade, Industry, Energy, Small and Medium Venture Business Committee, analyzed candidate Lee's public official re-registration data and found that the balance of securities accounts in the names of candidate Lee and his spouse increased about 12 times, from 12.43 million won at the end of 2024 to 157.35 million won at the end of last year.

During this period, candidate Lee proposed an amendment to the Income Tax Act (in April last year) to apply separate taxation at the highest tax rate of 27.5% instead of comprehensive taxation on dividend income from listed corporations with a dividend propensity of 35% or more (in April of last year) and actively called for the treatment, saying, "When corporate dividends increase, all citizens, including ant investors, benefit."

The ruling and opposition parties passed the related law in December last year, subdividing sections and adjusting the highest tax rate through consultation.

Rep. Choi said, "The possibility of a conflict of interest cannot be ruled out as the person who proposed a revision to the Income Tax Act that applies separate taxation and the party directly involved in the passage of the bill increased assets through a large investment in securities," and added, "We will also carefully look into whether to report a conflict of interest and request a blind trust during the appointment process through the hearing."

He also emphasized that it must be properly verified at the personnel hearing whether the reporting of conflicts of interest by members of the National Assembly holding financial assets and the screening of job relevance for stock blind trusts, as stipulated by the current Public Official Conflict of Interest Prevention Act and the National Assembly Act, have been properly conducted.